The Indie Top 10 : 5.8.98 – 5.10.98

The Indie Top 10 : 5.8.98 - 5.10.98

Wayne Wang’s Trimark release, “Chinese Box” hurdled Artisan‘s slumping“Suicide Kings” by more-than-doubling the latter film’s gross on 84fewer screens and holding on to a respectable 75% of its per screenaverage over the prior week. First Look‘s “Mrs. Dalloway” is holdingstrong in third position, with its box office actually growing by 2%even while losing 5 screens. Legacy‘s “Little Men” opened with littlegrosses, placing fourth in the top ten, but averaging only slightly morethan 700 smackers per sheet. Among the newcomers or returnees to thelist, “Junk Mail,” “Taste of Cherry” and “Ayn Rand” all had massiveincreases in grosses and posted o.k.-to-good per screen numbers, aswell, with “Cherry” posting 8th overall (including Specialty Divisionfilms) in this last statistic.

In Specialty Division product, Sony Pictures Classics‘ “Wilde” postedstrong numbers in its second frame, garnering almost $10,000 per screenand gaining 15% in gross numbers over the previous weekend while addingonly one screen. Among bows, New Line‘s “Woo” pulled in the top grosses,but finished behind Miramax‘s “Artemisia” ($8,235) and October‘s “TheKingdom 2” ($4,147) in per screen averages, nabbing slightly over fourgrand. SPC’s “The Spanish Prisoner” continues to look like the odds-onfavorite to become the sleeper of the Spring, coming in fourth amongSpecialty Division pix by nabbing just under a million semolians for anoverall gross of close to a million clams, in it’s sixth week ofrelease.

++ THE INDIE TOP 10 ++

CHINESE BOX (Trimark): $236,930 (+75%) — Total: $678,762

Week #4 — 68 Screens (+37) — $3,484 average per screen

SUICIDE KINGS (Artisan): $101,081 (-29%) — Total: $1,409,880

Week #4 — 152 Screens (+2) — $665 average per screen

MRS. DALLOWAY (First Look): $86,071 (+2%) — Total: $2,878,910

Week #12 — 71 Screens (-5) — $1,212 average per screen

LITTLE MEN (Legacy): $77,924 — Total: $77,924

*Premiere — 111 Screens — $702 average per screen

DEJA VU (Rainbow): $63,090 (+21%) — Total: $186,723

Week #3 — 34 Screens (+14) — $1,856 average per screen

LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND (LGF): $62,923 (-4%) — Total: $2,317,239